


my salvation lies in your love

by mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, IT COULD HAPPEN, here have some angst, i mean she's got twenty four years with the thing, river finds the neural relay in her screwdriver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6294265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrinneyFriday/pseuds/mygalfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She finds it entirely by accident and wonders how he’d ever thought he could hide it from her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my salvation lies in your love

**Author's Note:**

> Story title from Orange Sky by Alexi Murdoch.

 

She finds it entirely by accident and wonders how he’d ever thought he could hide it from her. Enamored with her new sonic screwdriver, she’s taken to using it at every opportunity – to sonic a bit of currency from the nearest cash machine, to pop open the button on the Doctor’s trousers, and of course literally putting up cabinets. That last one had been entirely worth it just to listen to the Doctor huff and grumble.

 

So of course the sonic is in her back pocket when she slips out to the TARDIS to fetch her typewriter. She hasn’t written a thing since her last Melody Malone novel – aside from brief diary entries – and to be honest, she hadn’t wanted to even look at the typewriter after she’d finished the book. There is something about Darillium, however, that makes her feel like writing might someday become an enjoyable pastime again. With twenty-four years to spend with the Doctor, anything seems possible.

 

She lugs the typewriter from her study and down the TARDIS corridors, through the control room. It nearly slips from her grasp on the last step when she stumbles over a hoodie left lying on the stairs. She catches the typewriter before it crashes to the ground but slips on the Doctor’s damned shirt and hits the last step hard. Her sonic falls from her pocket and bounces down the step, a piece of it going flying as it rolls across the control room floor.

 

River groans, more out of irritation than pain, and huffs a curl out of her eyes. She glares at the offending hoodie, silently cursing her messy husband – she may or may not have stripped it off him and tossed it away the last time they were on board but that is _hardly_ the point. The point is that she has a sore bum and a broken screwdriver.

 

From her inelegant sprawl across the staircase, she can see that part of the screwdriver’s casing has fallen off in its bumpy landing. _Wonderful_. The Doctor is not a man to give the traditional sort of gift. His younger self had preferred grand romantic gestures and his Scottish counterpart likes quiet shows of affection that mean so much merely because he’s so reticent with everyone else. But he’d actually given her a real, properly wrapped Christmas gift for once and she’s broken it in the first month.

 

Grimacing, River shoves aside the typewriter and climbs to her feet to retrieve the sonic and the piece that had broken off. Perhaps she can repair it and the Doctor won’t have to know it had ever been damaged.

 

As she scoops up the screwdriver and begins hunting for the missing piece, however, she glances down and realizes it isn’t damaged at all. The piece that had fallen had been _designed_ to come off. River pauses, standing frozen in the middle of the control room, and studies the screwdriver. It’s been very subtly done, a clear attempt to hide a certain function. But why wouldn’t he have shown her...?

 

Upon closer inspection, she recognizes the green, glowing addition for what it is – a neural relay. 51st century communication tech designed to contain a person’s consciousness for a short time after death. It isn’t unusual technology in and of itself but the Doctor had made this screwdriver for specifically her. He’d added things he knew she would like or need, improvements upon his own to please her. He’d shown her all of that already, taking great delight in pointing out its new features. What he hadn’t shown her was this.

 

Breath catching painfully as she realizes he’d been trying to hide it, River tightens her grip around the sonic. This particular addition had never been meant for her discovery. The only question is why and though she thinks she knows the answer already, nothing will satisfy her but confirmation from the Doctor himself.

 

She finds him hunched over one of her archaeology books in their shared study, a pen in hand as he scratches notes in the margins and grumbles to himself. He looks up when he senses her in the doorway, his grumpy countenance already softening. By the time their eyes meet, he’s very nearly smiling. It fades the moment he catches sight of her expression. “River? What’s the matter?”

 

Wordlessly, she displays the hidden function she’d found on her sonic. In the persistent darkness with only the soft glow of his reading lamp, the green of the relay is even brighter. The Doctor pales at the sight of it, his lips parting wordlessly.

 

River offers him a pained smile. “I wasn’t supposed to find this, was I?”

 

He swallows audibly and when he speaks, his voice is a hoarse whisper. “River -”

 

“This is why Darillium is our last night, isn’t it?” She shakes her head, laughing softly. If she doesn’t laugh she’ll cry and even now, she can’t bring herself to do that in front of him. “Of course it is. I wouldn’t let you just slip away from me. I’m going to die.”

 

The Doctor drops his gaze to his white-knuckled grip around his book and clamps his lips shut, pursing them like if he doesn’t he’ll say something compromising. That he doesn’t immediately correct her, doesn’t scowl and call her a dramatic idiot, is all the confirmation she needs.

 

River nods slowly, squaring her shoulders. “Well… I hope it’s nothing undignified.” She frowns when he glances up wide-eyed, waving the sonic at him. “And you’re using this to what, exactly? Preserve my consciousness? What for? To listen to it on repeat when you’re lonely, like a sodding voicemail?”

 

He flinches from the words like a physical blow. “River, please. Stop.”

 

She grits her teeth, crossing her arms over her chest as she stares him down. “Answer my question, Doctor.”

 

“I can’t,” he whispers. His shoulders hunch in on themselves like he wants to become as small as he can possibly manage. She wonders if he knows he’s making her feel just the same right now – small, insignificant, not worth even the truth. “Please River, you know I can’t -”

 

“If I’m going to die the least you can do is tell me what you plan to do with my consciousness afterward,” she snaps, watching him recoil. “Especially since you so cleverly planted it in my gift -” She stops, staring at him in dawning comprehension. “You gave me my own screwdriver because of the relay, didn’t you?” When he offers no protest, looking away to glare at the floor, she laughs out loud and tears sting her eyes. “It was never a real gift at all. It was just another manipulation.”

 

“No.” The Doctor rises to his feet then, rounding the desk cautiously with his hands held out in front of him. His brows knit together, his whole face pinched with panic. “River, that isn’t true. I gave you that to show you that I…” He trails off, hands balled into fists, and breathes out through his nose. “To show you how I feel.”

 

Chest tight and eyes swimming, River shakes her head and smiles wryly at him. “You can’t even say it, can you? I’m going to die and you still can’t say it.”

 

“Stop,” he snaps, glaring at her. “Stop saying that!”

 

“Why?” She settles a hand on her hip and eyes him flippantly, her stance entirely at war with the cacophony in her head. “It’s true, isn’t it? I’m going to _die_ -”

 

The Doctor lashes out with one of his fists, pounding it against the wall with such force it sends a few books toppling from the shelves to the floor. “Yes, it’s true! You’re going to die and twenty-four years is all we have left! Is that what you wanted to fucking hear?”

 

River stares at him wordlessly, chest heaving and eyes stinging as he advances on her with a scowl, his gaze bright with despair and fury.

 

“You’re going to die,” he repeats, his voice choked. “And I can’t save you. I’ve never been able to save you. Not Melody and not Mels and not you. I am never going to be able to save you, River, so stop bloody looking at me like I must have some clever plan. I’m an old idiot with _nothing left_.”

 

He looks at her, tired and desperate, and it might have been enough to soften her – might have been enough to make her shoulders sag and her arms reach out for him – if she didn’t have a lifetime of watching him give himself away to everyone else. And her always waiting on the outskirts, hoping for a smile, a kiss, a whirlwind date that will make her forget her uncertainty, just for a while. He’s so adamant he has nothing left and she thinks fleetingly of a broken timeline, of stopping the universe in its tracks just to tell a dying man he was loved.

 

“No,” she says softly, slowly, hating the way her voice wavers. “But then, you were never willing to offer much where I was concerned, were you, sweetie?”

 

He sighs when she turns to leave the study, the screwdriver gripped tightly in her hand as she stalks away. “River, don’t.” Distantly, she hears his footsteps rushing up behind her. “Sod it, River get back here -”

 

She whirls with a glare, tossing the screwdriver viciously at him.

 

Cursing in surprise, the Doctor scrambles to catch it. River takes advantage of his distraction to slip out the back door and into the garden, telling herself all the while she isn’t running. She just needs some air. On another planet. Without him.

 

He comes after her of course, still clutching the sonic as he skids out into the garden. “River! _Stop_.”

 

She slams the TARDIS doors shut, confident the Old Girl won’t let him in. When she hears his gruff, Scottish complaining and the sound of him yanking the door without success, River smiles weakly and pats the console with a hand that shakes. “Thanks, dear.”

 

She sets the engines into motion with a flick of a lever and the last thing she hears before the ship disappears from Darillium is the Doctor’s boot connecting with the door in one last fit of temper.

 

-

 

When the TARDIS lands, she expects to step out into a raging battle or a violent pub brawl or a ship five minutes from detonating. Hell, she’d even settle for a pleasure planet and a spa reservation. The last thing she expects is to end up exactly where she’d left – her back garden on Darillium. River stands in the doorway and stares, her eyes landing on the little cottage just long enough to see a flash of her own hair carting something into the house and out of sight.

 

She frowns, glancing back at the TARDIS.

 

“It’s not a mistake.”

 

Breathing in, River grits her teeth and refuses to turn around.

 

“And I know you’re cross but I’m not the me you’re cross with so unclench those fists, Professor.” She hadn’t even realized she was clenching her hands but she refuses to unclench them simply out of spite. She turns to face the Doctor with a glare. He blinks at her in surprise. “Buggering hell, stop doing that with your eyes. You can’t have angry eyes – that’s my thing. Get your own thing.”

 

“The rule about not being cross with you only applies to younger versions who aren’t guilty yet,” she informs him coolly. “You’re clearly in my future. So piss off.”

 

Instead of snapping back at her or stomping away cursing under his breath, the Doctor has the audacity to grin at her. “I’d forgotten how angry you were.” His brows raise and he looks at her like he’s got a secret he’s dying to spill. “Cheer up, dear. Your face will stick like that and you haven’t got anymore left. Tea?”

 

She stares, watching him turn on his heel and march toward the little table in the garden, sinking into one of the chairs. He gestures wordlessly to the seat across from him and begins puttering about, not even looking up to see if she’s going to leave. She wants to. She wants to throw something else at him – maybe that teapot he’s holding – and leave him here.

 

But he clearly knows something she doesn’t and the TARDIS had brought her here for a reason. Biting her tongue, River squares her shoulders and reluctantly joins the Doctor at the table. Wordlessly, he pours her a cup of tea and pushes it toward her, arching a brow.

 

She frowns at him, reaching for the pitcher of milk.

 

The Doctor ignores his tea entirely in favor of watching her prepare hers, his blue eyes clear and avidly interested in her every move. Normally, she might have been flattered by the attention but she’s still silently fuming and valiantly attempting to ignore what she has just learned of her own fate to be affected by a scrap of attentiveness from the Doctor.

 

When she remains stoically silent, the Doctor sighs and leans back in his chair, eyeing her unhappily. If he weren’t such a grumpy sod naturally, she might have said he was pouting. “Don’t you want to know how far in the future I am?”

 

River sips her tea and takes her time answering. Swallowing, she carefully sets aside her cup and folds her hands on the table in front of her. “I would guess somewhere in the twenty-four years we have together since I’m apparently not dead yet.”

 

He doesn’t flinch but she watches in satisfaction as the spark of amusement fades from his eyes. “And how do you know you’re not?”

 

She raises a brow in challenge. “What would you be doing here if I was?”

 

The Doctor frowns, fingers tapping restlessly against the table. “Maybe I didn’t want to leave our home.”

 

Huffing, River glances away, breaking eye contact first. “Darillium isn’t our home, Doctor. It’s only a rest stop.” A swift glance at the Doctor out of the corner of her eye shows him studying his hands with a frown, his brow creased in thought. “To answer your question, I saw myself duck into the house when I arrived.”

 

“Ah.” He looks up then, smirking. “You cheated.”

 

She rolls her eyes and tells herself determinedly that no matter how affable and light-hearted the man in front of her is now, he is still the same man who had given her that sonic screwdriver, a lie in the form of his love. She swallows. “And where was I off to in such a hurry? I should remember my manners.”

 

The Doctor glances toward the house with a little smile, eyes softening. “You had something to take care of,” he says cryptically, arching a brow. “She wanted to speak with you herself but I thought a defter hand might be best.” At her inquiring glance, he shrugs. “You know how critical of ourselves we can be. Besides, I know what you’re like when you meet yourself and we haven’t got time for all that bloody flirting.”

 

“Pot, kettle, darling,” River murmurs, forgetting herself.

 

When the Doctor grins at her return to their usual banter, she scowls and glances away again. It’s then that she notices something unusual about their back garden. It had been empty before, save for their little vegetable patch and a hammock. There are obvious additions now – like the sandbox beneath one of the trees, along with pint-sized digging tools. Leaning against the ivy-covered fence is quite possibly the smallest bike she’s ever seen. On a blanket spread out on the grass, there are stuffed animals lined up with paper plates like they’re on a picnic. There is one extra plate without an occupant and River feels her hearts climb into her throat.

 

Her mouth goes dry and it’s impossible to hear a thing over the blood suddenly rushing in her ears. Curling her fingers tightly around her teacup, she scans the yard for any other spoilers and finds them everywhere – child-sized rain boots beside the gate, a kite stuck in the branches of a tree, a pacifier left abandoned in the vegetable patch. A _child_. Dear god…

 

The Doctor clears his throat, drawing her attention sharply back to him. At her wide-eyed stare, he softens and reaches a hand across the table, curling his fingers around hers. “Breathe, dear,” he says quietly. “And listen.”

 

Any other time, she’d have pulled her hand away and told him where he could shove that patiently condescending tone but her hearts are pounding away a thready, terrified rhythm in her chest and the sight of those tiny little boots are etched into her mind’s eye like a brand. “Doctor -”

 

“Shut it,” he says, frowning. “What did I say? Listen.”

 

She glares.

 

His mouth curls into a grin, his thumb stroking soothingly over her knuckles. “I – the me you just left – I had given up. I’m old and I’ve made mistakes too terrible and too numerous to name. I’m sure I can’t change anything and especially not your fate. I’m afraid to try, afraid to do the wrong thing for the right reasons and bugger it all up.”

 

River stares at him, bewitched by the raw honesty he’s showing her. Honesty from the Doctor – without all the clever words and showiness – is a miracle on par with feeding the five thousand or turning water into wine. She can’t look away. The Doctor sighs, watching her for a moment with eyes so warm and wise that River finds herself gripping his hand back despite her earlier anger.

 

“You’re too important. It makes the possibility of fucking up even more terrifying.”

 

“Are you trying to say that this – all of this -” She risks a petrified glance in the direction of those little boots, thinking dizzily of the pacifier and the kite and the bike and wondering oh god what if there’s more than _one_? “This is after our twenty-four years are up? Are you trying to tell me you’re going to save me?”

 

The Doctor raises his brows, flashing her a secretive grin that looks ridiculous on his old, weary face. She loves the expression instantly, as she does every single expression on every single daft face of his. “I’m going to need a kick in the arse first. Think you’re up to the task?”

 

She sighs, staring down at their joined hands on the table. “If I’m not, no one is.”

 

The Doctor smirks. “That’s my girl.”

 

His younger self is waiting for her when she finally pulls herself away from their terrifying, enticing future and back to her present. He’s sitting under the tree in their garden with his guitar across his lap, scowling as he tunes the instrument with slender hands.

 

He doesn’t say a word, ignoring her entirely like he has any right to be cross, but she can tell as she approaches that he’s tenser than he’d like her to believe, his lanky frame pulled taut like a bow. He’s been waiting for her, she surmises. He’s been sitting here waiting and fretting that she might never come back. Idiot.

 

With a sigh, River settles against the tree beside him and curls her legs up beneath her. When she glances at him, she notices he has her sonic tucked into his jacket pocket, the green light of the relay peeking out. She glances away from the sight and bumps his shoulder with hers, waiting for him to peer at her cautiously.

 

“You’re going to save me.”

 

His shoulders slump and he heaves a tired sigh, raking a hand through his gray hair. His eyes fall shut and he sounds so very old when he speaks. “River, please stop. I _can’t_ -”

 

“No, Doctor,” she says, letting her hand fall to his knee. She squeezes encouragingly, watching him open his eyes to look at her. “You’re _going_ to save me.”

 

He stares at her for a long moment, squinting, and River offers him a small, enigmatic grin. His lips part in shock. “Where have you been?”

 

She slips her sonic from his pocket and stares with determination at the little device that has the audacity to believe itself capable of holding the vastness of her mind in its entirety. It was to be her fate but not anymore, she thinks. Not if she can help it. Out loud, she says only, “Spoilers.”

 

-

 

The Doctor refuses her help, citing spoilers as the reason. Though she hardly thinks it matters knowing how she dies, only that she does, River is still too furious with him to want to be cooped up in their small study together for any length of time.

 

She’s going to die and he’d given her a screwdriver – not as a selfless gesture of what she means to him, not as a last gift for his wife, but as a selfish way to hold on to some part of her when she’s gone. Even now, it’s about him. She thinks of him tucking the relay into some drawer to grow dusty and forgotten, a last remnant of one of his wives, and it’s all she can do not to scream. She agrees to let him work alone. So the Doctor shuts himself away with half-formed plans and the damned screwdriver.

 

She spends six months of their twenty-four years by herself.

 

At first, she never ventures far from the study. She paces the hallway and lingers just outside the door, listening to the Doctor talk to himself. She hears the scratch of a pen to paper, the self-loathing in his muttered curses when he realizes whatever he’s doing won’t work and wads the paper up, tossing it away. She hears when he gets fed up with yet another dead end and stands outside with her hand pressed to the door, her hearts aching as she listens to the sound of glass hitting the wall and shattering.

 

After a while, she can’t stand waiting around outside the door while he tries to find a way to save her. It’s maddening and infuriating and not her style. Since the Doctor refuses to give her any relevant information, she has no choice but to leave him to it but that doesn’t mean she’s going to spend her time hovering dutifully outside the door.

 

She starts stealing the TARDIS. Sometimes she seeks out younger versions of him – not too young, lest she terrify him when she takes her frustration out on him in bed and elsewhere – but sometimes she doesn’t look for him at all. She leads rebellions and revolutions, starts wars just so she can finish them, starts pub brawls for the same reason. She steals the crown jewels, wears them to Cleopatra’s birthday party and puts them back again. She finds Davinci, encourages his outrageous crush on her, and drugs him with a kiss until all he can remember about her is her smile. She crashes a regency ball and introduces the tango two hundred years too early, she helps with the building of the Library of Alexandria, steals what she likes, and strikes a match.

 

If these are to be her last years, she wants to be remembered.

 

And when she returns to Darillium after her excursions, bruised and weary and often with ash and blood in her hair, the Doctor is still shut away in his study. The light from the room seeps under the door and illuminates her footsteps as River passes by on her way to bed.

 

She hardly ever sees her husband anymore. He sleeps in his study, eats in his study, and on the rare occasions when he does venture out he is so far from the quietly resigned but desperately tender man she had stood next to and listened to the Towers sing. He’s constantly preoccupied, his face pale and his red-rimmed eyes darting about, never lingering anywhere for long – not even, perhaps _especially_ not, on her.

 

River glances up when he shuffles into the kitchen, a dressing gown over his hoodie and his gray hair rumpled. He looks around blankly for a moment before his eyes alight on the kettle on the stove. Apparently resigned to waiting for the water to boil, he sighs and sinks into a chair at the table, his head in his hands.

 

Watching him for a moment, River ventures, “Any progress?”

 

There’s a brief pause as his shoulders come up around his ears and his fingers rub at his eyes. Finally, tiredly, he answers, “No.”

 

“Oh,” she says, and looks away. The kettle whistles and keeps either of them from having to think of anything else to fill the silence. River pours two cups and drops enough sugars in the Doctor’s tea to fell an elephant, so preoccupied she doesn’t hear him walking up behind her to retrieve it.

 

He presses his chest against her back, wrapping an arm around her waist to reach his cup. River stiffens automatically, holding her breath. They haven’t touched in weeks, haven’t kissed in even longer. They haven’t made love since all of this began. The Doctor has been too engrossed in his research and River too angry to seek him out. Even now her resentment lingers.

 

The Doctor notices her reticence, of course he does. He doesn’t pull away like any other less idiotic husband might have. Instead he touches her more deliberately, forgetting about his tea entirely as he nuzzles his face into her hair and kisses the back of her neck. His hand rests at her stomach, slowly sliding up. For a moment, River closes her eyes and allows herself to feel his touch – to feel loved and wanted instead of empty and furious at everything.

 

His lips are soft against her skin, kissing a trail along her shoulder. His teeth latch onto the strap of her tank top, pulling it out of the way. As the strap slides down her arm and his mouth opens wet and warm against her shoulder blade, River swallows.

 

She sees a flash of green behind her eyes, the neural relay glowing in the dark. She’d been so sure he had given her that screwdriver as a gesture, to say all the things he cannot begin to express out loud. She’d been so certain he was finally telling her… River pushes the thought away only to be met with another, even more troubling one – the kite stuck in the tree and the picnic of stuffed animals. She sees it all through the haze of that damned green light. Her throat tightens. Her eyes snap open and she tenses, stiffly slipping from the Doctor’s arms.

 

She can feel his confusion like a living thing but the only word she can offer is a quiet but firm, “Don’t.”

 

His hands fall back to his sides. Turning to face him, River meets his steady, wounded gaze and hates herself – but not enough to close the ever-widening distance between them. After an unending moment of scrutiny, the Doctor’s mouth settles into a thin line and his brows lower in resignation. With a nod, he breaks eye contact and turns away, fleeing the kitchen.

 

River leans against the counter, her eyes burning and her chest too tight to breathe. It’s only much later that she realizes he’d forgotten his tea.

 

-

 

Not long after the incident in the kitchen, the Doctor takes his piles of research and books and bloody 3-D schematics and relocates to the TARDIS. He mutters something about having access to more resources on his ship when she asks him about it but she knows it’s her fault – she’d pulled away, so now he is too.

 

She doesn’t stop him and is instead quietly resentful that he’d monopolized her transport and only means of escape. She can hardly run away from the Doctor if he’s going to be on the ship with her. Without a proper outlet for her increasingly tangled emotions, River resorts to bottling it all up and waiting for the proper moment to explode. For his part, the Doctor spends his time obsessively working on a way to save her to no avail.

 

That future back garden filled with toys has never seemed quite so far away.

 

Sitting on the garden steps and staring fixedly at the spot where a small bike will sit in the future, River doesn’t even know if she wants it. In fact, she’s fairly certain she doesn’t. Her upbringing had hardly instilled a motherly instinct in her and any child in her care would undoubtedly end up used against her by any of her numerous enemies. Even as maternally disinclined as she is, River knows she would destroy anyone who tried to harm something that belonged to her. A child would only make her more dangerous.

 

Though… the Doctor had seemed terribly happy in that future. Much happier than he is right now at any rate. And the state of the garden had made it quite clear her future self had been outside playing with her child before the TARDIS arrived. Maybe, in time, she had made a decent mother. How difficult could it be to just do exactly the opposite of what Madame Kovarian had done?

 

Nothing is set in stone. That future she had seen could be unwritten in the blink of an eye – no more giddy Doctor pouring tea, no more kite stuck in a tree or sandbox with tiny digging tools. It had been a glimpse, but an impermeable one. Even so, as she blinks at the spot where that sandbox might be someday, River feels her mouth soften into a smile and thinks she rather likes the idea of having a future. Even if that future happens to involve some apparently rather untidy children.

 

The soft creak of the TARDIS door opening draws her attention and River looks up to find the Doctor standing uncertainly in the doorway, eyeing her like he isn’t sure if he’ll be welcomed. She manages a smile for him, patting the space on the step beside her.

 

Looking relieved, the Doctor abandons the TARDIS to sit beside her. His arm brushes hers and he’s suddenly so close she can breathe him in, catching the scent of the ink staining his fingers. Hesitantly, she reaches out and takes his hand. The Doctor glances at her in surprise but his eyes crinkle with relief and he lets her study his palms placidly enough.

 

“Look at you,” she murmurs, stroking her fingertips over an ink stain. “Run out of paper, have you?”

 

He harrumphs grumpily, trying to pull his hand back.

 

River refuses to relinquish it, smiling to herself. “You’re beginning to look like a Rorschach card, sweetie.”

 

“Oh?” His eyes light up and he rests his hand in hers again. “And what do you see?”

 

Warmth settling in her chest in the midst of their first flirtatious exchange in months, River peers at his ink-stained skin with the seriousness of a psychic reading a palm. “Me,” she finally concludes. “Without a top.”

 

Eyebrows rising up to his hairline, the Doctor leans in closer and studies his hand. “Really? Where?”

 

River bites back a smile, tracing a fingertip lightly over an ink blob. “Right there.”

 

“Ah,” he murmurs, frowning at it. “Not nearly as stimulating as it is in person, is it?”

 

She laughs out loud, turning her face into his shoulder to bury her smile. His hoodie carries the smoky scent of the firewood he’s probably burning in his study on the TARDIS and his arm is warm and heavy around her shoulders as he draws her close. His cheek brushes her hair and then his lips are at her forehead and oh how she’s missed this. She’s missed _him_ so much she aches with it.

 

Her eyes sting and she lifts her head, letting the Doctor slide his fingers along her jaw and seek out her mouth with his own. The moment their lips touch, she thinks fleetingly of that pacifier in the vegetable garden and the bright green light of the neural relay. She can’t help it – she flinches.

 

The Doctor drops his arm from around her shoulders as if scalded, turning away from her to scrub a hand over his face. Lifting his head, he stares sightlessly across the garden and says, “I understand, you know. I was going to let you walk off to your death with nothing but a screwdriver and a snog.” He swallows, avoiding her puzzled gaze. “I failed you.”

 

Her breath catches. “Doctor -”

 

“Christ, River, just admit it,” he snaps. “I understand you hating me but lying about it is just fucking cruel.”

 

“Hate you?” She stares at him, a horrible realization dawning. “Doctor, I don’t hate you. How could I?”

 

“No, _stop_.” He grits his teeth, shaking his head. His eyes narrow and he glares at something in the distance. “Just admit it. I failed you. You’ve never had any trouble calling me out before so just _say it_ , River.”

 

“I will not,” she snaps. “Because it isn’t true. You’re the one apparently convinced you’ve let me down, Doctor. I never said that -”

 

He finally turns his head to stare at her incredulously. “You didn’t have to! For fuck’s sake, you won’t even let me touch you! And considering how eager you usually are, that’s certainly enough of a clue you’re disgusted with me so it’s either that or this some twisted form of punishment -”

 

She slaps him so hard she hears the click of his jaw as his mouth snaps violently shut. She glares at him, hands clenched into fists and her eyes burning. “If you think that’s what this is about, you’re an idiot,” she hisses. “And if _this_ is any indication of what our life together is going to be, then I’d rather you let me die anyway.”

 

He recoils from the words like another physical blow and River watches in fuming silence as he rises to his feet and stalks into the house without a word, slamming the door shut behind him. She’d thought this version of him was a little braver than the last but apparently not when it matters. Not that she’s any better. She wastes no time running in the other direction, fleeing to the comforting safety of the TARDIS and shutting the door behind her.

 

This time, when she takes off she puts the engines on silent and the outer shell on invisible. She doesn’t need to input the coordinates. The Old Girl knows exactly where she wants – where she needs – to go. She won’t risk actually stepping foot outside and catching her future unaware but the monitor will do for her purpose.

 

She just wants to check and see if it’s still there – still possible. At this point it feels more like a mirage. When the monitor on the console blinks to life, her breath catches. It’s still there.

 

It’s the very same day by the looks of it, except the Doctor isn’t alone in the garden now. He’s sitting on the picnic blanket surrounded by stuffed animals. On one side of him and apparently in charge of the whole affair is a little boy, blonde and beautiful, generously passing out biscuits to his stuffed party guests. On the other side of the Doctor is her future self, a chubby baby nestled comfortably on her lap.

 

Two of them.

 

River swallows, leaning closer to the monitor. The TARDIS refuses to turn on the sound but she doesn’t need it to understand the happy scene just outside these doors. The Doctor makes some ridiculous face that causes the boy to giggle and the baby to clap her pudgy hands. It earns her a grin from the Doctor and a kiss on the nose. The idiot is completely enamored, she realizes.

 

Even her future self looks at ease, as though holding a child comes as naturally to her as breathing. River can’t help but envy her that – or the peaceful smile on her face when she looks at the Doctor. They exchange a heated glance and the Doctor brushes his hand against hers, his eyes crinkling in affection. River watches as her future self leans in and whispers something, shifting the baby on her lap. The Doctor offers her a raised brow and a smug grin.

 

River blinks quickly, touching her fingertips to the screen. They haven’t looked so in love in months, if ever. Gods, she _misses_ him. They’ve been living in the same space for longer than they ever have in their entire marriage but she misses her Doctor like he’s been gone for an age.

 

The future playing out before her has never seemed so impossible, so untouchable. And as beautiful as it looks, she knows that if in order to get it she has to break her hearts and the Doctor’s, it isn’t worth having. _Nothing_ is worth what they’ve been putting themselves through for months – not even the blonde-haired boy and his pudgy baby sister. All this desperation to cling onto life and yet, what good is a life if it costs her love?

 

They’re wasting such limited, precious time.

 

River flicks off the monitor and wipes hurriedly beneath her eyes. She reaches for the lever to send them back into flight but the TARDIS is already ahead of her. They go hurtling through the vortex, toward home, and River offers the life she leaves behind a silent goodbye. That future has to die, one way or another. She can either choose to let it go or kill it by clinging to it.

 

Even now, despite everything, she knows when it comes down to saving her marriage or saving herself it really isn’t a choice at all.

 

-

 

In her absence, the Doctor has moved back into his old study. She finds him in the middle of the floor, surrounded by pages and pages of carefully sketched plans. He looks haggard and his eyes are manic and she has never seen him quite as lost as he is when he looks up at her standing in the doorway. Without a word, River steps over his papers and the cold cups of tea to reach him.

 

He stares unblinkingly at her shoes until she kneels to join him on the floor. Taking his face in her hands, River waits for him to look at her before she offers him a watery smile. “It’s enough, sweetie.”

 

His brow furrows but he doesn’t speak, watching her in silent confusion.

 

River strokes a thumb over his cheek. “I want you to stop now.”

 

He shakes his head. “I’m not done. I haven’t found -”

 

“Honey, look at us,” she whispers, pursing her lips when they tremble. “This isn’t what I want. What good is having my life if I have to lose you to get it? What good is any of it without you, hmm?”

 

“My River...” His hand reaches up and clasps hers over his cheek, blue eyes locking with hers. “Why do you think I’m doing this?”

 

Her hearts melt at the insinuation but she shakes her head and drops her gaze to the floor with a soft, “Because I made you feel like you had to. And I’m sorry for that. I need you to know, Doctor. I was never angry you couldn’t find a way around my death. I learned a long time ago that some things can’t be changed.”

 

“Then why? You didn’t even want me touching you.” She can hear the pain in his voice at the mere memory of it and River swallows, speechless with regret. Six months of such little time _wasted_ on selfish, pointless bickering and cold, heavy silences. When she doesn’t answer, the Doctor sighs and threads his fingers through her hair, directing her gaze from the floor to his stern frown and expectant stare. “The truth, River. Please.”

 

“Because every time you did touch me all I could think about was that bloody transmitter,” she finally admits, closing her eyes. Those eyes of his are positively penetrating this go round. She can’t bear to look at him and be so pathetically weak at the same time. She remembers his future self and the raw, pained honesty in his confession. It gives her the courage to keep going. “When you gave me that screwdriver I thought it was you trying to tell me… in your own roundabout, Doctor way what I – but then I discovered the relay and I knew it wasn’t about me at all. It was about you, hoarding my consciousness like a souvenir -”

 

When her voice shakes, she stops abruptly and grits her teeth but the Doctor shushes her, already gathering her into his arms and pulling her against him. His arms wrap tight around her and he buries his face into the crook of her neck, leaving River with no choice but to cling to his hoodie and struggle to get a hold of herself.

 

“I’m sorry, River,” he says, his voice thin with weary exhaustion and shame that only makes her grip him tighter. “I didn’t mean to cheapen it. I _was_ telling you -”

 

He stops, sighing. Pulling back, he takes her by the shoulders and looks at her so intently she can do nothing but stare wordlessly back at him, trembling inside.

 

“You broke time for me once. That’s what I was trying -” He drops his gaze, gesturing wordlessly around them. “That’s what Darillium is supposed to be for us. Stolen time.” He sighs again and River feels her hearts in her throat. “Buggered it up, didn’t I?”

 

She shakes her head, her eyes welling up as understanding dawns. All this time, she’d thought he couldn’t say it and he had been all along. She’d broken time to tell him he was loved. The Doctor had _given_ her time to tell her the same. “Yes, you did,” she breathes, pressing a hand to his cheek. “But I understand now, my love.”

 

He looks up then, his eyes bright with relief. “Good.” He turns his head, kissing her palm hesitantly. When he looks at her again, his piercing gaze makes everything within her still and listen. “That relay, it isn’t – it’s important, alright? I can’t say more. I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”

 

She nods at once, smiling tearfully. “Always.”

 

Looking relieved, he draws her close again and brushes his lips feather-light across her cheek. When she doesn’t pull away, he grows bolder and turns his head. She wraps a hand around the back of his neck and keeps him close, kissing him softly. His relief and his need for her are palpable in every bruising press of his lips against hers but River turns her head away, breathing unsteady and cheeks flushed.

 

“Are you going to be there?” She asks, searching his face desperately. “At the end?”

 

The Doctor shuts his eyes for a moment, nodding once. “I know you’ve had cause not to believe it in the past but I will always be there when you need me, River.”

 

“Good,” she whispers, stroking her fingers through his hair and pulling him close again. “That’s all I ask. Now promise me, Doctor. Promise me you’ll stop all this.”

 

He doesn’t answer right away, his jaw tight and his eyes narrowed at the floor.

 

River kisses the underside of his jaw. “I don’t want to be saved, my love. Not like this.” She lifts her head and presses a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, pulling away when he tries to turn his head and kiss her properly. “Promise me.”

 

Swallowing, the Doctor nods once and meets her gaze unwaveringly. “I promise.”

 

Satisfied he means it, River tilts her face up to his as his mouth hungrily seeks hers and this time she doesn’t even think about pulling away. She doesn’t think of the neural relay, she doesn’t think about death, and she doesn’t think about the future that will never come to be – the back garden with the stuffed animal picnics and kites stuck in trees. And she absolutely doesn’t think about the blond little boy and the chubby baby girl that will never exist at all.

 

Instead, as the Doctor makes love to her on the floor of his study, in the midst of all those unfinished plans to save her life, River doesn’t think about anything at all but how grateful she is that her last twenty-four years will be spent exactly like this.

 

-

 

True to his word, the Doctor stops trying to find a way to save River from whatever fate awaits her and River stops dwelling on the sonic screwdriver and what it means or doesn’t mean. They don’t talk about those first six months on Darillium and their remaining twenty-three and a half years are spent in near constant, perfect bliss. When the sun rises and daylight washes warm and bright over the planet again, River has no regrets.

 

She tells him so, cradled in the Doctor’s arms and doing her best to ignore the way his fingers dig into her hips, like he’s trying to keep her from slipping away. He manages a smile at her words, nodding as he leans in and their noses brush. “Not even the time you got me plastered on strawberry Schnapps?”

 

“Well,” she says, smiling and wrinkling her nose. “Perhaps just one regret. Who knew you could be such a weepy drunk?”

 

The Doctor breaks into a true grin at that – the one she loves most, the one so wide and full that it overtakes his whole grumpy face and looks downright unnatural. She smiles right back, cupping his face in her hands and quietly thanking the universe she got to see it one last time. “River, I -”

 

“Shh.” She presses her fingertips against his lips and shakes her head. “I know, darling.”

 

He tugs her close, clutching her to his chest and tucking her head beneath his chin. “You always do.”

 

When she kisses him goodbye, he grasps her hand tight in his and pleads, “Call me. If you get into trouble.”

 

She nods, knowing he means _when_ she gets into trouble. “I’ll see you soon then.”

 

His eyes dim and even as he nods and manages a weary smile for her, she knows he’s staring so avidly and drinking her in like it’s the last time because for him _it is_. She’ll see him again. He won’t see her. And that means she’ll never see this him again – the man she spent twenty-four years with. Her hearts ache and her lips tremble but she doesn’t want his last memory of her to be one of tears. So she grins broadly through her anguish and offers her husband a cheeky wink.

 

“Goodbye, sweetie.”

 

When she gets the call to lead the expedition into the Library, something clenches in her stomach and she knows – _this is it_. She says yes anyway and when she packs her bag, she makes certain her sonic screwdriver is tucked safely away. Apparently, she’s going to need it.

 

And then it’s time. She isn’t as ready as she’d thought she would be. The Doctor hadn’t lied – he is with her in the end but not the him she needs. There’s no time to dwell on regrets as she hooks herself up to the mainframe with surprisingly steady hands and listens to the countdown tick away.

 

Imagine, her final moments and there is literally a countdown. It’s certainly a sight more dignified than any of her other close calls, at least. Tidy too. She rather likes the idea of a tidy end – tied up in a bow. A bowtie even, she thinks with a smile at his young, terrified face. It isn’t the last thing she wants to see so she closes her eyes and thinks of the one who loves her – the young idiot with the goofy grin and the old idiot with the very same smile. The very same love in his eyes.

 

Her last thought is of him and when she dies, she’s still smiling.

 

When she opens her eyes to the bright world of the data core, she finally understands what had been so important about that neural relay that used to haunt her dreams. The Doctor had saved her – the only way he could. It’s a stop-gap, she realizes as she embraces her team, as she learns to live in this virtual world, as she becomes the mother figure she never thought she could be and tucks imaginary children into their beds with a story. The data core is nothing but a waiting room – a terminal at the station as she waits for the train to arrive and whisk her off again.

 

River Song has never been one to wait around but stuck in the Library data core and remembering the heavy weight of the Doctor’s pleading gaze as he said _trust me_ , she decides to make an exception.

 

At first it’s easy. If there’s one thing the Library excels at, it’s providing distractions. She adventures by day – captaining pirate ships and defeating evil wizards and causing scandals at Jane Austen’s carefully sanitized country dances. And then she tucks the children into bed and begins it all over. Eventually, she grows restless enough to start trying to communicate with the outside world again.

 

She contacts Vastra first, wary of searching out the Doctor in the event it doesn’t work. When her meetings with Vastra are a rousing success and established with comforting frequency, she finally tries reaching out to her husband. He’s younger now, wearing grief around his shoulders in place of a bowtie. He never seems to take notice of her but River doesn’t leave him, not even when it hurts.

 

It isn’t fair to blame this version of him for making her wait, for leaving her like a book on a shelf when he hasn’t even done it yet but there is no one else to blame and he can’t hear her. At least it’s what she believes until he wraps his hand around her wrist and meets her eyes for the first time since she started haunting his footsteps.

 

Despite everything, it is so good to be touched by him, _to be held by him_ , again. It is a joy she hasn’t known since Darillium and she drinks it in just the way he will in his future – with the desperate certainty that it is the very last time.

 

“If you ever loved me,” she says, but she knows. She has always known – even when she wanted to believe she didn’t. It has been so long since then and after an eternity waiting in the Library for a train that has never come into the station, she cannot help but long to hear it once more. _Tell me again. Tell me you love me_. “Say it like you’re going to come back.”

 

“See you around, Professor River Song.”

 

It is an _I love you_ in one of the many ways he finds to say it – with Stevie Wonder under London Bridge and metaphors about monoliths and screwdrivers meant to preserve the part of her he had always admired most. It is enough to finally let him go.

 

And it is precisely then, when she has lost all faith in ever seeing him again, that the Doctor comes charging in with a smug grin and a clever plan. He always did like to make an entrance.

 

River materializes in the middle of the TARDIS, naked as the day she was born, and the first thing she sees is the Doctor’s wide, insufferable smile. She isn’t in the Library, she knows. She stays far away from any books about the Doctor in the Library.

 

Her breath catches and that’s when she realizes – she’s breathing. She isn’t a line of data code with a living mind. She’s alive. She has a body. A body with blood rushing through its veins, a stomach that is suddenly insatiably hungry, a parched throat. A body thrumming with restless energy. Everything is too bright and too loud – even the beat of her hearts deafens her. She’d forgotten somehow, just what a rush it is to _live_.

 

It only takes her the space between one breath and the next to throw off the strange vertigo and get her bearings. River is far too used to rolling with the punches to let a little thing like being alive stop her for long. She moves quickly, hyper aware of the way her body works, the way her knees bend and the feel of her bare feet against the cold control room floor. None of it compares with crossing the distance between her and the Doctor, throwing herself into his arms. She relishes his startled gasp and the wiry arms that instantly wrap around her.

 

“What sort of time do you call this?”

 

“The right time,” he says, his voice muffled by her hair. He clutches her to him so tightly her toes aren’t even touching the floor any longer. She’s suspended mid-air and held up only by his refusal to let her go. He doesn’t remove his face from her wild hair so he remains muffled but she can detect the faintest wobble in his voice, thick with emotion. “I had to let it happen because it already had. I couldn’t risk changing anything, not until after Trenzalore -”

 

“Oh shut up, you idiot,” she breathes, lifting her head from his chest only long enough to kiss him silent and push away the tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t care how you did it. You broke your promise. You swore you would stop trying to find a way -”

 

“I lied.”

 

“I _hate_ you.”

 

His eyes soften. “You don’t.”

 

The familiar exchange leaves her giddy and she looks him up and down, admitting slyly, “Perhaps not. But we still have a lot of making up to do, my love.”

 

The Doctor’s wide, silly grin softens into a tender smile. His voice is a soft rumble as he asks, “Do we now?”

 

“Well, I am rather cross. Not only did you break your promise, but you made me wait an awfully long time,” she reasons. “It would be a shame to let such an opportunity go to waste.”

 

He raises a brow. “Opportunity?”

 

She winks. “I’m not wearing any clothes.”

 

His gaze drops instantly to assess her, as though he’s only just now realizing it. As his eyes widen and darken with interest, he stutters. “Well, there’s a reason for that actually. Your space suit -”

 

“Really don’t care,” she breathes again, curling a hand around his jacket and yanking his head down to crash her mouth hungrily against his. “Shut up, darling.”

 

“Quite right,” he mutters between kisses. “Fucking shame to waste it.”

 

River laughs and thinks fleetingly of that future she hadn’t even known if she wanted, that future she’d thought lost. Those impossible children and their stuffed animal picnic. Maybe it isn’t so lost after all.

 

There’s plenty of time to decide if she wants to go looking for it. For now, the Doctor is backing her into the console and the only thing River is interested in finding is that spot beneath his ear that makes him growl in that thick Scottish accent.

 

The rest will keep.


End file.
